X-Git-Url: https://git.distorted.org.uk/~mdw/sgt/putty/blobdiff_plain/2981454b687a63049482ae55ca8f87fa7f6a3132..22bf65b33160e1eae32fe06d1ee12b0738ffe523:/doc/faq.but diff --git a/doc/faq.but b/doc/faq.but index dc5c574f..92c7efbe 100644 --- a/doc/faq.but +++ b/doc/faq.but @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -\versionid $Id: faq.but,v 1.54 2004/02/04 18:39:14 jacob Exp $ +\versionid $Id: faq.but,v 1.61 2004/02/23 19:10:43 jacob Exp $ \A{faq} PuTTY FAQ @@ -193,34 +193,67 @@ Porting will become easier once PuTTY has a generalised porting layer, drawing a clear line between platform-dependent and platform-independent code. The general intention was for this porting layer to evolve naturally as part of the process of doing -the first port; a Unix port is now under way and the plan seems to -be working so far. +the first port; a Unix port has now been released and the plan +seems to be working so far. \S{faq-ports-general}{Question} What ports of PuTTY exist? -Currently, release versions of PuTTY only run on full Win32 systems. -This includes Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it includes Windows NT, -Windows 2000 and Windows XP. In the development code, partial ports -to Unix (see \k{faq-unix}) and the Mac OS (see \k{faq-mac-port}). -are under way. +Currently, release versions of PuTTY tools only run on full Win32 +systems and Unix. \q{Win32} includes Windows 95, 98, and ME, and it +includes Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. + +In the development code, a partial port to the Mac OS (see +\k{faq-mac-port}) is under way. Currently PuTTY does \e{not} run on Windows CE (see \k{faq-wince}), and it does not quite run on the Win32s environment under Windows 3.1 (see \k{faq-win31}). We do not have release-quality ports for any other systems at the -present time. If anyone told you we had a Mac port, or an iPaq port, +present time. If anyone told you we had an EPOC port, or an iPaq port, or any other port of PuTTY, they were mistaken. We don't. -\S{faq-unix}{Question} Will there be a port to Unix? +\S{faq-unix}{Question} Is there a port to Unix? + +As of 0.54, there are Unix ports of most of the traditional PuTTY +tools, and also one entirely new application. -It's currently being worked on. If you look at the nightly source -snapshots, you should find a \c{unix} subdirectory, which should -build you Unix ports of Plink, PuTTY itself, PuTTYgen, PSCP, PSFTP, -and also \c{pterm} - an \cw{xterm}-type program which supports the -same terminal emulation as PuTTY. We do not yet have a Unix port of +If you look at the source release, you should find a \c{unix} +subdirectory containing \c{Makefile.gtk}, which should build you Unix +ports of Plink, PuTTY itself, PuTTYgen, PSCP, PSFTP, and also +\c{pterm} - an \cw{xterm}-type program which supports the same +terminal emulation as PuTTY. We do not yet have a Unix port of Pageant. +If you don't have Gtk, you should still be able to build the +command-line tools. + +Note that Unix PuTTY has mostly only been tested on Linux so far; +portability problems such as BSD-style ptys or different header file +requirements are expected. + +\S{faq-unix-why}{Question} What's the point of the Unix port? Unix +has OpenSSH. + +All sorts of little things. \c{pterm} is directly useful to anyone +who prefers PuTTY's terminal emulation to \c{xterm}'s, which at +least some people do. Unix Plink has apparently found a niche among +people who find the complexity of OpenSSL makes OpenSSH hard to +install (and who don't mind Plink not having as many features). Some +users want to generate a large number of SSH keys on Unix and then +copy them all into PuTTY, and the Unix PuTTYgen should allow them to +automate that conversion process. + +There were development advantages as well; porting PuTTY to Unix was +a valuable path-finding effort for other future ports, and also +allowed us to use the excellent Linux tool +\W{http://valgrind.kde.org/}{Valgrind} to help with debugging, which +has already improved PuTTY's stability on \e{all} platforms. + +However, if you're a Unix user and you can see no reason to switch +from OpenSSH to PuTTY/Plink, then you're probably right. We don't +expect our Unix port to be the right thing for everybody. + \S{faq-wince}{Question} Will there be a port to Windows CE or PocketPC? It's currently being worked on, but it's only in its early stages yet, @@ -228,6 +261,9 @@ and certainly isn't yet useful. PuTTY on portable devices would clearly be a useful thing, so in the long term I hope it can be brought up to release quality. +There's a also third-party port at +\W{http://pocketputty.aleq.cz/}\c{http://pocketputty.aleq.cz/}. + \S{faq-win31}{Question} Is there a port to Windows 3.1? PuTTY is a 32-bit application from the ground up, so it won't run on @@ -582,19 +618,18 @@ is liable to lead to problems. \S{faq-psftp-slow}{Question} PSFTP transfers files much slower than PSCP. -We believe this is because the SFTP and SSH2 protocols are less -efficient at bulk data transfer than SCP and SSH1, because every -block of data transferred requires an acknowledgment from the far -end. It would in theory be possible to queue several blocks of data -to get round this speed problem, but as yet we haven't done the -coding. If you really want this fixed, feel free to offer to help. +The throughput of PSFTP 0.54 should be much better than 0.53b and +prior; we've added code to the SFTP backend to queue several blocks +of data rather than waiting for an acknowledgement for each. (The +SCP backend did not suffer from this performance issue because SCP +is a much simpler protocol.) \S{faq-bce}{Question} When I run full-colour applications, I see areas of black space where colour ought to be. You almost certainly need to enable the \q{Use background colour to erase screen} setting in the Terminal panel. Note that if you do -this in mid-session, it won't take effect until you reset the +this in mid-session, it may not take effect until you reset the terminal (see \k{faq-resetterm}). \S{faq-resetterm}{Question} When I change some terminal settings, @@ -607,9 +642,13 @@ send sequences that modify these options in mid-session, but when the terminal is reset (by server action, or by you choosing \q{Reset Terminal} from the System menu) the defaults are restored. -If you want to change one of these options in the middle of a -session, you will find that the change does not immediately take -effect. It will only take effect once you reset the terminal. +In versions 0.53b and prior, if you change one of these options in +the middle of a session, you will find that the change does not +immediately take effect. It will only take effect once you reset +the terminal. + +In version 0.54, the behaviour has changed - changes to these +settings take effect immediately. \S{faq-altgr}{Question} I can't type characters that require the AltGr key. @@ -805,6 +844,30 @@ If you really want to change the character set used by the server, the right place is \c{/etc/sysconfig/i18n}, but this shouldn't be necessary. +\S{faq-screen}{Question} Since I upgraded to PuTTY 0.54, the +scrollback has stopped working when I run \c{screen}. + +PuTTY's terminal emulator has always had the policy that when the +\q{alternate screen} is in use, nothing is added to the scrollback. +This is because the usual sorts of programs which use the alternate +screen are things like text editors, which tend to scroll back and +forth in the same document a lot; so (a) they would fill up the +scrollback with a large amount of unhelpfully disordered text, and +(b) they contain their \e{own} method for the user to scroll back to +the bit they were interested in. We have generally found this policy +to do the Right Thing in almost all situations. + +Unfortunately, \c{screen} is one exception: it uses the alternate +screen, but it's still usually helpful to have PuTTY's scrollback +continue working. The simplest solution is to go to the Features +control panel and tick \q{Disable switching to alternate terminal +screen}. (See \k{config-features-altscreen} for more details.) + +The reason why this only started to be a problem in 0.54 is because +\c{screen} typically uses an unusual control sequence to switch to +the alternate screen, and previous versions of PuTTY did not support +this sequence. + \H{faq-secure} Security questions \S{faq-publicpc}{Question} Is it safe for me to download PuTTY and @@ -881,6 +944,36 @@ PuTTY web site? We already have some, thanks. +\S{faq-link}{Question} Would you link to my web site from the PuTTY +web site? + +Only if the content of your web page is of definite direct interest +to PuTTY users. If your content is unrelated, or only tangentially +related, to PuTTY, then the link would simply be advertising for +you. + +One very nice effect of the Google ranking mechanism is that by and +large, the most popular web sites get the highest rankings. This +means that when an ordinary person does a search, the top item in +the search is very likely to be a high-quality site or the site they +actually wanted, rather than the site which paid the most money for +its ranking. + +The PuTTY web site is held in high esteem by Google, for precisely +this reason: lots of people have linked to it simply because they +like PuTTY, without us ever having to ask anyone to link to us. We +feel that it would be an abuse of this esteem to use it to boost the +ranking of random advertisers' web sites. If you want your web site +to have a high Google ranking, we'd prefer that you achieve this the +way we did - by being good enough at what you do that people will +link to you simply because they like you. + +If you have software based on PuTTY, or specifically designed to +interoperate with PuTTY, or in some other way of genuine interest to +PuTTY users, then we will probably be happy to add a link to you on +our Links page. And if you're running a mirror of the PuTTY web +site, we're \e{definitely} interested. + \S{faq-sourceforge}{Question} Why don't you move PuTTY to SourceForge?